Why is Google displaying meta descriptions for pages that are nowhere contained in said page metas?
-
Certain search keywords are pulling up incorrect page titles and meta descriptions for our site. I've looked through our code, and the text used by Google in the search results is nowhere found inside our site. I've also looked at previous iterations of our site from over a decade ago and still haven't found it.
I then searched specifically for the exact phrased incorrect meta descriptions and found a long list of spammy sites linking to our domain with the exact, incorrect meta description. Is this why Google is displaying the incorrect data, and how do I get Google to use the meta descriptions from my actual site?
-
Hi Jeffrey:
Sometimes Google shows other info in the meta description like Open Directory Project and Yahoo Directory. Have you tried to implement this in the section of each page you have this problem?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why Is Google Showing My Images Upside Down in the Index?
Hi, My client has PDFs of their catalog on the site which google is indexing. However, it seems that google is taking an image from the catalog and then showing it upside in the index for images/search results. The images are not upside down on the site. Has anyone heard of this happening before or does anyone know a way to fix it? Thanks
Web Design | | AliMac260 -
Is this is Wow HIT ME IN THE Face Google bug or am I missing something?
We have a page on our site https://www.spurshelving.co.uk/shop/bigimage.aspx?m=353&i=3436 which enders happily on all browsers as far as I am aware and is reasonably well optimised. So when google sent me a link to a new test tool I just had to check it out. https://testmysite.withgoogle.com/intl/en-gb/?utm_source=awareness&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tmsv1awareness&utm_content=header Well the result was shocking...... The page that renders in the results is a default missing product page and not the page that the link renders on a web page. I played a little and simply used the I=3436 attribute and the page appeared no problem I then reversed the attributes so that they were i=3436&m=353 and the page again resolved totally as expected. This indicates to me that Google have an issue with aspx attributes. Now I know what to do but is this same issue an issue in spidering and indexing pages. If is is wow that is a big smack in the face. Does it also harm search results in other engines. Keen for comments here
Web Design | | Eff-Commerce0 -
Without Keyword Info From Google - How do we re-do a site not knowing what to keep?
Bit of a riddle I am trying to figure out here... I have a client that receives some visits via organic searches (around 700). Most of which are to the homepage. The client isn't actively targeting any keywords yet (on purpose) and the homepage doesn't have much on it. I've been hired to do keyword research and re-develop the site but this is the first site I've done since google really put the hurt on keyword information. My worry is that without knowing what keywords people are using currently to search and find the site, I will be potentially deleting information that is bringing in traffic. Looking at the traffic and other keywords I can view I think the keywords are branded which makes it a bit easier but again, it is a bit worrisome, not so much for this client but for future work. Anyone have any ideas other than looking at webmaster tools and landing pages?
Web Design | | JoshBowers20120 -
Will keyword optimization for a landing page impact SEO for subsequent pages?
For example, if I optimize keyword “pleurx” really well on our landing page, I'd like to know if subsequent
Web Design | | Todd_Kendrick
pages linking back to that landing page will rank higher than before for “pleurx”
even if “pleurx” wasn't optimized on the subsequent pages. Thanks! -Andrew0 -
Schema.org - Right way to mark the pages
Dear all, Almost since we started designing our site, we are using schema microdata. It is not only because of the rich snippets, but because I want the search engines to better understand what we have. For example, the +1 buttom would not work properly without schema microdata, because it kind of ignores the OpenGraph parameters that specified image and description; and since we are a (very small) local bussiness directory (between other things), all our clients have a hand written schema complient description on their lisings, including address, opening ours, telephone number, description, etc. It is hand written by us because the tools avialable are simply not good enough to cover all different scenarios that a listing can present. I have not use, until today, a proper for the homepage, and it is probably the cause that our page lost the nice links below the site description in the google snippet. I did not place it on the body tag, but near the description, closing it inmediately after the description finishs. Now this is solved and we will wait to see if the links come back in the next weeks. Now to the question. Our site has three sections, with three different systems installed, two running wordpress and a third running another script. the main site is the local bussiness directory. The front page is mark as "schema.org/WepPage", and I do not know how to mark the other pages of the main site. I was thinking of marking the listings as "schema.org/ItemPage" since they are related to specific clients. Would you consired it to be right? Then, we have landing pages for the categories, should they be mark as WepPage, or as an Article, or something else? Many thanks in advance for your help, Best Regards, Daniel
Web Design | | te_c0 -
Wordpress Pages not indexing in Google
Hi, I've created a Wordpress site for my client. I've produced 4 content pages and 1 home page but in my sitemap it only says I have 1 page indexed. Also SEOmoz only finds 1 page. I'm lost on what the problem could be. The domain name is www.dobermandeen.co.uk Many thanks for any help. Alex
Web Design | | SeoSheikh0 -
META Description Not Showing Up On Google
Hi, I have noticed recently that for my highest ranking keyword on Google United Kingdom, the meta description (that has not changed for several months and always used to be displayed when someone searched for this keyword) now only shows the first couple of words. Also, instead of the rest of the Meta Description there is a list of items that I offer for sale all squashed together with their individual prices. I am the only company on page one of Google who's impression looks like this and I think it looks really unprofessional. Why has this happened and how do I change it? Any help is much appreciated
Web Design | | g3mmab0 -
The primary search keywords for our news release network have dropped like a rock in Google... we are not sure why.
Hi, On April 11th, a month after the farmer update was released for U.S. users of Google, the primary keywords for ALL our sites significantly dropped in Google. I have some ideas why, but I wanted to get some second opinions also. First off, I did some research if Google did anything on the 11th of April... they did. They implemented the farmer update internationally, but that does not explain why our ranks did not drop in March for U.S. Google users... unless they rolled out their update based on what site the domain is registered in... in our case, Canada. The primary news release site is www.hotelnewsresource.com, but we have many running on the same server. EG. www.restaurantnewsresource.com, www.travelindustrywire.com and many more. We were number 1 or had top ranks for terms like ¨Hotel News¨, ¨Hotel Industry¨, ¨Hotel Financing¨, ¨Hotel Jobs¨, ¨Hotels for Sale¨, etc... and now, for most of these we have dropped in a big way. It seems that Google has issued a penalty for every internal page we link to. Couple obvious issues with the current template we use... too many links, and we intend to change that asap, but it has never been a problem before. The domain hotelnewsresource.com is 10 years old and still holds a page rank of 6. Secondly, the way our news system works, it´s possible to access an article from any domain in the network. E.G. I can read an article that was assigned to www.hotelnewsresource.com on www.restaurantnewsresource.com... we don´t post links to the irrelevant domain, but it does sometimes get indexed. So, we are going to implement the Google source meta tag option. The bottom line is that I think we put too much faith in the maturity of the domain... thinking that may protect us... not the case and it´s now a big mess. Any insight you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Do you think it was farmer or possibly something else? Thanks, Jarrett
Web Design | | jarrett.mackay0